Best Laid Plans
by SUPERcilious
Summary: Blair loves routine almost as much as the silk Hermès scarf her father just sent from Paris. Chuck/Blair. One-shot. Set slightly in the future.


A/N: This is my first endeavor into fan fiction, so hopefully it's decent! In case we don't get our happy ending this season, here is something like what I hope to see play out eventually. Any feedback is loved. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, obviously.

* * *

The future creeps up on them midway through senior year; dead fathers, cheating boyfriends and lines of cocaine could be damned. It's hard to avoid the inevitable.

Blair loves routine almost as much as the silk _Hermè_s scarf her father just sent her from Paris—which consequently served quite effectively to bind her wrists to Chuck's headboard not an hour after its reception—but not her dark haired counterpart, so it becomes a game of hide and seek, since what are they without the game? Whispered promises of _later_ at society events and impromptu trips to the Hamptons are taken with hooded eyes and secret smiles.

xxx

At graduation, Blair makes her speech as class valedictorian, flawlessly of course, and she closes her eyes, throws her cap up to the stars and wishes for nothing, everything and whatever life may bring. She sees Serena sitting in the third row, staring past Dan, past Nate and closely watching Chuck, who currently has his gaze transfixed on Blair up on stage. She catches his eye and a small smile tugs at the corners of her lips and it's almost like an epic cinema moment, she thinks, before he ruins it by obscenely licking his lips just as Headmistress Queller walks up behind Blair to take back the microphone.

xxx

Chuck clutches her waist delicately next to the information kiosk in Grand Central's main concourse as they wait for her train to New Haven. A couple from the Midwest, judging by the matching visors they are sporting with _Illinois_ scrawled across the brim, elbow Chuck's latte off the ledge of the kiosk and onto the polished marble floor; Blair turns to hiss at them, but Chuck just shakes his head, tugs gently at her hips and silently hopes the extra hot foam burns the rubber on their Old Navy flip flops.

"You know," he begins, a ghost of a smirk creeping across his features, "a warm bed at The Palace and a Columbia degree are only a phone call away."

She nods, burrowing her nose into the ridiculous checkered ascot he's knotted around his neck and takes a deep breath, as if to memorize the smell—a smoky mix of top shelf liquor, pot and the lavender aftershave he insists on using.

"It's August," she says after a moment, both confusion and adoration evident in her voice as she reaches up to untie the ascot and tuck it into her Birkin bag. "You _would_ wear some pseudo scarf in August."

He can do nothing but shrug and smirk innocently—a paradox within itself—and send her off onto the shadowy track with a last lingering kiss.

His smirk quickly turns into a scowl as the Midwestern couple coos. He shoots them a pointed glare and they quickly return to a detailed study of the Metro-North schedule.

xxx

Yale is mostly like Constance, only the people are nicer and don't wear name brand clothes. Suddenly, she's not Blair Waldorf anymore, paradigm of perfection, but just Blair. She thinks, for a little, that it's nice.

He is only a phone call, text message or video chat away, but Blair can't help but think, as she analyzes nuances in _Canterbury Tales_ that she's somehow missing something. Chuck is still in the city, having ultimately turned down Yale and resigned to Columbia so he could double as CEO and college freshman. He attends meetings with mergers and developers while Blair learns about plant cells. And, despite all the inevitability surrounding them, Gossip Girl isn't as good as she used to be, and it's hard to keep tabs on him from New Haven.

When she goes home visit on weekends and he brings her as date to charity galas and dinner with investors she's Blair Waldorf again, and she knows that's who she is supposed to be.

xxx

She transfers after first semester. Columbia is an ivy league too.

Eleanor scoffs when Blair informs her.

"You're throwing away everything you've worked so hard for, and for what gain? That Bass boy?"

Blair has that Bass boy over for dinner next week where he charms Eleanor's mouth shut. Blair repays him heavily later that night.

xxx

Serena is slightly more understanding, since she still sees Chuck often after deferring college for a year to travel. Although so far, the only place she's traveled is over the Brooklyn Bridge.

"He misses you, I think," sighs the blond. "I mean, the number of lewd comments skyrockets whenever you leave since I guess he has to wait another few weekends before he can do to you whatever he's talking about." Her pretty features scrunch up in disgust as she actually processes what she just said.

Blair stays quiet while her lips twitch into a grin.

xxx

They're lying in bed, awake and exhausted, at that time when late night begins to bleed into early morning even though the sky is still dark. The only light in the room is coming from the television in the corner—partly obscured by Blair's black dress that was haphazardly thrown overtop it—which is still tuned to the _Project Runway_ marathon that Blair was indulging in while she waited for Chuck to get back from a late class.

"That's a nice dress," she muses to herself, the first to speak in a while. Her words jolt Chuck out of his reverie and he stops tracing those sensual circles onto the small of her back.

"Do you ever not think about clothes?"

"Do you ever not think about sex?"

He pauses, long enough to make Blair believe that he is contemplating the question with genuine sincerity, before responding in that languorous drawl of a voice that still manages to send shivers down her spine. "Your performance earlier leads me to believe you wouldn't have it any other way, B."

She swats his chest playfully and he cocks an eyebrow at her, knowing full well that he's won this one.

"Now shut up," he says slowly, "or put out. But choose an option quickly, because Michael Kors' incessant babbling over there is making me irritable."

She settles for the latter—as if it was even a choice—and thinks that for right now, despite not having a schedule, a plan or a routine, there's nowhere she'd rather be.

* * *

End.


End file.
